Life and Stuff Gets in the Way

16Feb

Last weekend marked the halfway point in our training for the Solvang Century. At this point we should be riding about 70 miles or five hours in the saddle. But sometimes life gets in the way. I wanted to help a friend prepare for her party on Saturday so I couldn’t join the big group on their long and soggy ride to Pescadero and back (I’m not so sorry I missed that one). I convinced Katie, Cindy S and Michelle to ride with me on Sunday instead.

Katie asked if we could route our ride through Campbell so she could check out an open house. While we were in Campbell we did a ride-by on two homes Cindy S was looking to buy. After toodling around town and a painfully slow trip down the Los Gatos Creek Trail, we rushed back across the valley with visions of burgers at the Woodside Bakery dancing in our heads.

In the bike lane on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road I hit a golf ball sized rock and immediately flatted. My Dura-Ace tubeless rims didn’t make the job easy. Why was it so hard just to get the *@&^ tire off?

Kick-boxing Katie with her wide tire levers finally yanked them off while I wiped off the blood from scraping my knuckles on the spokes in my lame attempt. Strangely, getting the tire back on was much faster. But between a late start, the multi-home tour and the flat, we had lost valuable time and decided to reroute our burger stop from Woodside to Palo Alto. Rushing our meal to beat sunset wouldn’t have been fun.

At 48 miles and 1400 feet of climbing, we barely earned our burgers. Still, we got in some critical miles, learned a new route across the south valley, and most importantly, Katie and Cindy were able to ride more instead of cutting out early to drive around looking at houses. Next week we’ll go harder.

Have you ever combined a training ride with an important errand or chore? Were you able to meet both goals?

Hmm – normally, I separate the days out. Riding one day, errands the next. Burgers are often the goal, though! :) I may add the Woodside Bakery to the current list of faves.
I love that overpass. It makes the trip back so much flatter than many of the alternatives…

Nearly 32,000 Americans die in car crashes annually. 80% of car crashes are PREVENTABLE. If the TOASTER was killing that many people we'd think it was ridiculous. We'd un-plug it and say, let's Fix The Toaster.